A Digital New Deal for the AI Era
Our awards carry a tradition of more than two decades. Browse past awardees
Hosted by CIE-USA Greater New York Chapter, in partnership with CIE National, LANDED Incubator, Supermomos, and university & ecosystem partners across the Greater New York region — Columbia, Weill Cornell, Mount Sinai, Yale, Kean, Stevens, NJIT, NYU, Virginia Tech, and more. The convention brings together engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, and students across AI, quantum, semiconductors, healthcare, and finance.
2026 Honorees & Keynote Speakers
This year CIE-GNYC recognizes four leaders whose work spans agentic AI, quantum computing, national digital governance, and next-generation wireless networks. All four are honored at the Awards Gala: two open the conference as keynote speakers, and two deliver the Gala keynotes.
Honoree · Gala Keynote
Prof. Yu-Ting Kuo 郭昱廷
University of Cambridge; MIT Sloan School of Management; former Corporate Vice President, Microsoft
“Choices, Not Forecasts: Shaping the AI Era Together”
Honoree · Gala Keynote
Dr. Yennun Huang 黃彥男
Head, Taiwan Information Security Center & Distinguished Research Fellow, Academia Sinica; former Minister of Digital Affairs, Taiwan; IEEE Fellow
“AI Trustworthiness and Risk Management”
Honoree · Keynote
Dr. Jerry M. Chow
IBM Fellow; CTO, Quantum-Centric Supercomputing, IBM Research
“The Future of Computing is Quantum”
Honoree · Keynote
Prof. Rose Qingyang Hu 胡清阳
Department Head and Professor, Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech; IEEE Fellow, AAAS Fellow
“Towards 6G: Cognitive Semantic Communication and Physical AI”
Deadlines & Announcements
Seats are limited
Technical program admission is open to all (FREE).
Awards Gala Dinner tickets: $120 non-member / $100 member.
Register at https://tinyurl.com/ciegnyc2026 · Zelle: treasurer@cieusa-gnyc.org
Innovation Demo Day
Fourteen live demos — quadruped robots, generative-AI lighting, and agentic AI across healthcare, biotech, cyber-risk, real estate, and game creation — plus a 3:00 PM Pitch Lightning Round on the main stage.
Best Demo/Pitch Award presented at the Gala. View the line-up
Poster Session
Nine posters from Kean, Stevens, Hofstra, Marymount, Academia Sinica, Engineering New Zealand, and a high-school scholar — on display from 11:30 AM.
Best Poster Award presented at the Gala. View accepted posters
Three Pillars
AI Reshaping Education and the Future of Work
Talent cultivation, professional reinvention, and education reform for the AI era.
AI for Biomedicine & Life Sciences Innovation
How AI is rewiring the healthcare value chain, drug discovery, and precision medicine — with attention to translation, supply-chain trust, and measurable return.
AI for Governance, Trust, and the Future of Finance
Agent evaluation, guardrails, and observability for high-stakes deployment; AI governance frameworks; and leadership on industrial AI standards, anchored in the financial industry.
Program · Sunday, October 25, 2026
Registration, posters, and the Innovation Demo Day open at 11:30 AM; keynotes begin at 12:30 PM. Coffee 12:00 – 12:30 PM and 3:00 – 3:30 PM.
Registration & Networking Ballroom Hallway
Hosted by Program Co-Chairs Dr. Steve Lin (林志天) & Dr. Vivian Ye (葉維紅), Membership Chair Dr. Wen-Sen Lu (呂文森), and 何亞娜, with the volunteer team.
Poster Session — Pathfinders, Scholars, and Human Rights in the AI Era Ballroom Hallway & Phoenix Terrace
On display 11:30 AM – 6:00 PM; presenters at their posters 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM and 3:00 – 3:30 PM. Best Poster Award presented at the Gala.
- Prof. Louis Chen (ESG World Citizens & Digital Governance Foundation) & Dr. Yennun Huang (Academia Sinica) — AI for Good: From Technology to Global Citizenship
- Prof. Jenghwa Chang, Hofstra University — Advancing AI Literacy and Responsible AI Use in a Medical Physics Graduate Program
- Qilong Yu, Stevens Institute of Technology — Selective Risk Information Loss in AI-Generated Financial Summaries
- Qingyun Pei, Kean University — Generative AI-Assisted Curriculum Auditing: Mapping a High School Math Pathway to O*NET Data Scientist Competencies
- Kuan Huang, Kean University — Pixel-Level Data Augmentation for Robust Medical Image Classification
- Meng Xu, Kean University — Efficient Fine-Tuning for Chest X-Ray Report Generation on Multiple HPC Platforms
- Abdulkarim Alotaibi, Marymount University — Logistic Regression, Gradient Boosting, and Random Forest in Phishing Email Classification
- Julie Nottage, Engineering New Zealand — Your Expertise Is Worthless Without Confidence, Connection and Clarity
- Joanna Xu, Bridgewater-Raritan High School — Interactive Visual Analysis of U.S. State Child Spending Trends
Innovation Demo Day — Live Demos & Exhibition Road to AAEOY 2027 Boardroom West
AI and robotics projects and innovative start-up companies. Meet the quadruped robots, watch a table lamp compose lighting scenes from a prompt, try an E-Ink tablet that turns handwriting and voice into searchable notes, and see agentic AI at work across real-estate underwriting, healthcare data, clinical trials, cyber-risk, SRE, and game creation. On demo 11:30 AM – 3:00 PM; Pitch Lightning Round 3:00 – 3:30 PM in the Phoenix Ballroom; founders reconvene at the 5:00 PM Founders Roundtable. Best Demo/Pitch Award presented at the Gala.
- Faraday Future FX Navi & FX Aegis — Jessica C. Yang, WeBranding Global. Embodied-AI quadruped robots for companionship, education, and facility operations
- Lepro TB1 AI Smart Table Lamp — Coco Lien & Rebecca Ding, WeBranding Global / Lepro. Generative-AI lighting: your words, a brighter atmosphere
- iFLYTEK AINOTE Air 2 — Yinan Li, iFLYTEK. AI E-Ink tablet: live transcription, meeting summaries, 100+ language search
- TensorCRE — Cher Chang, Literock Capital. AI underwriting workflow automation for real-estate deals
- PoR for Biological Reasoning — Solomon P, Alex M, Elijah P, Julian Z, Olivia S – Bilateral validation protocol creating verifiable records of communication.
- Vibranium Labs — Tanny Kang, Co-Founder. Agentic AI SRE for proactive incident monitoring, triage, and resolution
- Protos Labs — Sam Goh, Field CISO & GM USA / Joel Lee, CEO. Agentic cyber-risk and threat-intelligence workflows for insurers
- Dorian — Julia Palatovska, Co-Founder & CEO and Denis Terpanov, VP of Product. No-code game creation and distribution platform for creator-led IP.
- Eureka Trials — Daphne Chen, Founder. Clinical-trial infrastructure and patient-referral workflow for digital health
- NephroSense AI — Poornima Dubey, PhD, Co-Founder. Clinical decision support for chronic-kidney-disease risk from routine labs
- Refaire — Vivien Zhang, Founder. Multimodal AI for hardware diagnosis, repair guidance, and warranty workflows
- Accura Medical — James Liu, Co-Founder & CEO. Blood-based Alzheimer’s testing brought into the primary-care exam room (FDA fast-tracked)
- Sensaeon — Mason Enis, Founder. Non-invasive wearable sensory device restoring touch and proprioceptive feedback for treatment-resistant conditions
- Klona Biotech — Dylan Yeo, Founder. Bioprinted, mechanically robust fibrous human-tissue implants engineered to fit the patient
Additional line-up: CASTGNY Pitch Competition winners (Junior/Senior Section) · Startup World Cup finalist · LANDED incubator founders. Final line-up on the sign-up board at registration.
Opening Ceremony & Keynotes Phoenix Ballroom
Opening remarks by Dr. Ko-Yang Wang (王可言), President, CIE-USA/GNYC, and Dr. Sabrina Hsueh (薛沛芸), Vice President & Convention Chair.
Session 1 · Fireside Chats Phoenix Ballroom
Three conversations, one per pillar, that set up the 3:30 PM breakouts. Session 1B runs in parallel in Boardroom East.
1A-1 · 1:35 PM · From Relief to Empowerment — AI Reshaping Education and the Future of Work
1A-2 · 2:10 PM · From Recovery to Resilience — AI in Biomedicine Reality Check
1A-3 · 2:45 PM · Fireside Talk
1B · 1:30 – 3:00 PM · Panel: AI for Good Boardroom East
Session 2 · Coffee Break
2A · Poster Session Ballroom Hallway
Presenters at their posters; drop-in viewing continues through all afternoon transitions.
2B · Innovation Demo Day — Pitch Lightning Round Phoenix Ballroom
Rapid-fire pitches from the Demo Day floor on the main stage. More founders join as partner pipelines close: winners of the CAST-GNY youth pitch competition, regional finalists nominated by Startup World Cup, and founders from LANDED and Supermomos.
Session 3 · Parallel Breakouts
3A · AI Reshaping Work & Education Phoenix Ballroom
3B · AI for Precision Oncology, Healthcare, and Biomedical Science Boardroom East
3C · AI for Governance, Trust, and the Future of Finance Boardroom West
Fireside format — conversational, moderated Q&A open to all attendees.
Founders Roundtable & & Best Demo/Pitch Award Boardroom East
Open to all attendees. Demo and pitch teams reconvene with the judges and the program committee; certificates presented and group photo taken.
CIE Town Hall & Special Invited Talk Boardroom East
5:20 PM · CIE Town Hall Meeting — METS, AAEOY, and the Future of CIE-USA
5:40 PM · Special Session — Invited Talk
Best Poster Award Ballroom Hallway
Open to all attendees. Poster teams reconvene with the judges and the program committee; certificates presented and group photo taken.
Awards Gala Dinner Phoenix Ballroom
Evening program
- Master of Ceremonies — Chiao-Wei Lee (李僑韋)
- Welcome address — Prof. Ko-Yang Wang (王可言), President, CIE-USA/GNYC
- Gala keynote — Dr. Yennun Huang (黃彥男), Academia Sinica; former Minister of Digital Affairs, Taiwan · 2026 Honoree — “AI Trustworthiness and Risk Management”
- Gala keynote — Prof. Yu-Ting Kuo (郭昱廷), University of Cambridge; MIT Sloan School of Management; former Microsoft Corporate Vice President · 2026 Honoree — “Choices, Not Forecasts: Shaping the AI Era Together”
- 2026 Awards Ceremony — Prof. Yu-Ting Kuo, Dr. Yennun Huang, Dr. Jerry M. Chow, Prof. Rose Qingyang Hu
- High School Student Scholarship Awards — Chaired by Dr. Howard Chen 陳浩) , recipients listed in the Convention Journal
- Best Poster & Demo/Pitch Awards — Chaired by Dr. Sabrina Hsueh (薛沛芸), with judges from the CIE-GNYC Founder, VC, and investor circle.
- Raffle drawing
Registration & Logistics
Technical program admission is open to all engineers, researchers, founders, investors, and students. Banquet seating is limited — reserve early.
At a glance
- Venue
- Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel, 135-20 39th Ave, Flushing, NY 11354
- Banquet
- $120 non-member / $100 member — Zelle: treasurer@cieusa-gnyc.org
- Parking
- Hotel parking for event guests [rate TBA]
- Posters & demos
- poster@cieusa-gnyc.org
- Scholarship
- scholarship@cieusa-gnyc.org